Retailer and Manufactures Warranty

Civvy21

Grateful for some guidance on who is legally responsible for the manufactures warranty. Is it the retailer or the manufacturer?

Its in relation to a Sedatech PC i purchased from Amazon. It was sold by Amazon (not a third party seller). It was a real bargain, only £200, which was a very good deal considering its spec. The Sedatech website said all their PCs have a two year warranty. They collect and return and are based in Germany. The Amazon blurb did not mention a warranty.

One year and three weeks after purchasing the PC has failed. I suspect its the PSU. I contacted Sedatech who after asking for copies of invoices etc said they cant deal with it I have to contact Amazon.

I will be contacting Amazon later on today but just want to pre arm myself with my rights. If Amazon say its nothing to do with them, or their warranty is only one year, where do I stand. Is Amazon responsible for the extended manufactures warranty? Fortunately i used a credit card so will be able to use Section 75, if needed.

Grateful for advice.

bris

Your contract is with Amazon and it's what they had in the description that you go on not what's on Sedatechs website.


Manufactures often sell goods to large retailers but don't offer warranty support for those products, that's why they wanted to see who sold you it.


You need to look at what the sales conditions were when you bought it so contact Amazon.

DoaM

Irrespective of warranty, Amazon are liable under the Consumer Rights Act to offer a remedy, provided that the fault is inherent; but they may also require you to prove that the fault was inherent (present but not apparent at the time of sale) via an engineer's report. (Amazon would also be liable for the reasonable cost of a report, provided it did indeed identify an inherent fault).

Of course Amazon may not request a report. If they accept liability then they can offer a repair, replacement or refund ... any refund can be reduced to account for your usage/ownership. If you paid £200 then expect at best £150 refund.

agrinnall

Sounds like the Sedatech warranty does not apply in this case so you will be reliant on Amazon's response to your request for a remedy under the Consumer Rights Act.

Section 75 might be of help if you have confirmation that it is an inherent fault and Amazon don't play ball, but your card issuer is likely to be more insistent on you having that report than Amazon may be, so I'd hold that in reserve for now.

Civvy21

Thank you all for your very interesting and helpful comments.

Have to say Amazon were excellent. No more than about 20 seconds into our online chat they had offered me a full refund. And within about 1 hour of packing up the PC and dropping it off at my local Collect + i received an email saying the refund was on its way. I sometimes have misgivings about their tax and employment practices but it's difficult not to use them when their service is as good as this.

One other thing if i may. And please excuse my ignorance on this. If I buy a brand new car with, say, a five year manufactures warranty, my contract re the warranty is solely with the dealer, not the car manufacturer? What happens then if a warranty request is turned down (presumbably by the manufacturer) and i am unhappy with the decision, who would i take legal action against? The dealer? This is just a hypothetical question by the way.

Thanks

JJ_Egan

Main dealers / factory agents handle all warranty for the manufacturer .
Most warranty work is agreed as is and some will need clearance by phone others may require a visit from the factory warranty enginner .
Legal action well a complaint to the factory first is the way forward .

agrinnall

No, a manufacturer's warranty is provided by the manufacturer, for cars they may have warranty remedies provided by their dealer network but you would not need to take it back to the dealer that you bought from (which you would if you were making a CRA claim). And ultimately any claim through the warranty would indeed be against the manufacturer.

PS This is in response to post #5, JJ got his reply in before mine!